Garmin Forerunner 110 GPS-Enabled Sport Watch with Heart Rate Monitor (Pink)

BACKGROUND:
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I have used a Garmin 405 to track my weekend long runs for about 1.5 years. Previously I owned the Garmin 305. I’m using the 110 with with my 405 chest strap (saved me $50).

SUMMARY:
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The 110 does everything I do with my 405 in a significantly smaller, lighter form factor with a superior GPS chip (in theory, to be proven).

REASONS WHY I LIKE MY NEW 110 BETTER THAN MY OLD 405:
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* It’s smaller and less bulky than the 405, looks and feels like a regular watch, and wraps snugly around my smallish wrist.

* I don’t have to fiddle around with the temperamental 405 touch-(in)sensitive bezel.

* The displayed numbers for distance/hr/time/pace are bigger on the 110 than the 405, so easier for me to read on the run.

* There are fewer menus to navigate.

* Like the 405, GPS locking and accuracy works just fine, even under trees (more below).

* Like the 405, I can set the auto-lap to increment every 1 mile (other distances available).

* The 110 displays everything I want to track during and after my run.
– Elapsed distance (for run), Elapsed time (for run), Current HR, Average pace (for current lap), Last lap pace (displayed automatically for a few seconds after each lap), Average HR (for run), Average pace (for run). Average HR and pace for the entire run are show under “History” at the end of my run.

* To make this tangible, I can glance at the watch to see that so far I’ve run 2.1 miles in 21 minutes, my current HR is 160, my pace for the current mile (mile 3) is 9:56 and my pace for the last lap (mile 2) was 10:01. At the end of my run, I click through to “History” and see that my average HR for the entire run was 162bpm and my average pace was 9:54 minute miles. For me, currently, all I care about is keeping my HR in the 160-170bpm range (your range will probably be different) while trying to keep my pace under 10:00. In general, I suspect most runners will have the same requirements: Track your current HR to keep it within a target range while attempting to meet or beat a per-mile pace goal.

* The 110 has a longer battery life

* I never used the other 405 features like courses, virtual partner, etc. Ironically, I “customized” the 405 screens to pretty much do what the 110 displays by default (but cannot be changes).

WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT “CURRENT PACE”?
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I guess some runners want to know the pace they are running RIGHT NOW. Think of it as their instantaneous pace – kinda like what a car speedometer gives you. Some folks call it “current pace” but that can be confusing when you also have average pace for the current mile, so let’s call current pace the “right-now” pace. Unlike the 405, the 110 does not give you your right-now pace. Instead you get your average pace for the current lap. If your auto-lap is set to 1 mile (the default setting) then you’ll see your average pace for the current mile. I for one don’t need right-now pace. Since I’m trying to hit per-mile pace goals I want to see my average pace for the current mile. If I’m trying to hit a 10:00 pace for the current mile, and I start out too slow, the 110 will tell me my average pace for the current mile is slower, let’s say 11:00, and I know I need to run the rest of the mile faster to bring my average pace for the current mile down from 11:00 to my target pace of 10:00. As I speed up, my average pace for the current mile will slowly drop from 11:00 to 10:00. Bottom line: Right-now pace doesn’t help me hit per-mile pace goals so I could care less if it’s “missing” from the 110. If all you are doing is trying to hit per-mile pace goals (eg run a 10:00 miles) then you’ll be just fine with the 110.

ANY GPS ISSUES?
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Not for me. Check out connect dot garmin dot com slash activity slash 44862992 and you’ll see my test walk/run. Click to view the map in “Satellite” mode and notice that most of my test walk was under thick tree cover.

I’am no marathon runner, just trying to get back to running like back in my cross country/track high school days. It’s sooooo easy to use. I bought the 305/405 and immediately returned it because it was entirely too hard to figure out how to use. With the 110 you charge it, create your profile (weight, age, sex) go outside and let it sink with the satellites…then press start. It’s that simple. If you get the one with the heart rate monitor, it gives you calories burned, and heart rate. I see people in here griping about something regarding the “pace”. I don’t know..it displays the pace you are going at, so i’m not too sure what that is all about. You sync it with the garmin website, and it give you greater “in depth” information about your run.

Just remember that this isn’t suppose to have all the bells and whistle the other running watches have. This is for just simple use; distance, pace, calories, heart rate, time. This will suffice most people, and definitely extremely user friendly.

i have had this watch for about 3 months now. i have never owned any other type of gps enable watch before this one. however, my father owns the forerunner 305 and my mother has the forerunner 405 so i do still have some experience with those watches as well. in my opinion this is the best watch of the group hands down. the watch literally feels like a standard stopwatch. no extra weight, no extra bulk. the 405 does not quite fit like a normal watch due to the antenna extending down into the wrist strap. this watch is extremely comfortable to wear at all times and very adjustable in size (the holes go around the entire strap). this watch is very basic for runners and thus lacks the extra bells and whistles that the 305 and 405 have such as “ghost” trainers and “breadcrumb” directions. however this watch gives you current pace (more in just a moment), distance, calories, time, heart rate, and chimes at each “lap.” for a standard running regimen this watch is more than enough to supplement a good, hard workout.

CURRENT PACE EXPLANATION
-i have noticed a lot of confusion about the idea of this watch lacking current “real-time” pace. However, to be quite honest, “real time” pace on a gps watch is pretty useless. the gps in the watch is NOT hooked up to a satellite CONTINUOUSLY. no gps in the world has this capability. instead, each gps has a certain “ping” time to send and receive a signal from a satellite. more advanced gps systems have quicker “pings” to more closely mimic a continuous connection but the connection is still never actually continuous. on watches that advertise “current pace,” the watch is simply showing you the exact speed at which you were going between the last two pings. basically the watch calculates the distance traveled between each ping and then uses the time it took you to go that distance to get a speed. this leaves a lot of room for random spikes and troughs in the data. no human can run at a single speed across a certain distance. the human body simply cannot set itself to “cruise” and go from there. thus a “real time” pace is fairly useless for a runner. let me give an example. if someone were to turn on their forerunner 405 and set it to show current pace and run for 20 seconds at an 8:00min/mi pace, assuming the watch has a ping every 2 seconds or so, the data would look something like this: 6:52, 7:20, 8:15,7:47, 8:30, 6:59, 8:02, 8:10, etc…obviously this data is not really constant with an 8:00min/mi pace however the person may still very well be able to hit EXACTLY an 8:00min mile. What the forerunner 110 does, rather than show the data from EACH ping, is it takes each ping and adds it to a list with every other ping that has been recorded across the time frame and averages them all together. the final number that is shown on your watch will thus be called the “current AVERAGE pace.” which in all honesty is MUCH more useful if one is trying to hit a certain pace goal. basically this current average pace can quite accurately depict your mile split well before you’ve reached the mile marker..if you speed up significantly then the ping data will thus be in a lower range and bring your “average” time down. now some of you might think that this means that the watch only displays a pace that doesnt refresh very often. however, the exact opposite is true. the watch will refresh the current average pace every time another ping comes in..so basically your current average pace could hypothetically move up or down with every single ping. but due to the beauty of the AVERAGE, the watch will not jump around sporadically like in a “current pace” but rather stay around a certain time and gradually move up or down according to your speed. in essence, the “current pace” on a lot of gps watches is really truly useless and most people will never end up using it because it doesnt actually give you any solid data to work off of. because the data is changing so dramatically each second, the data is just plain useless. FYI: some runners may have noticed very random spikes in their “fastest” pace that the garmin software will show after uploading the data. basically, “fastest pace” during your run means that for one single ping during the run you might have run a 5:34min/mile pace for all of 1 second. however, because that pace is still part of the data that is added into the overall time, it still counts as your “fastest pace” for the run even though your average mile pace for the workout was only 8:34…

another nice thing about this watch is that after each run is saved to the history on the watch, it can be accessed to show the average pace over the entire distance rather than just the mile splits. the mile splits for older runs can only be accessed and viewed once the watch is connected to a computer and the data is uploaded.

hope all of this has cleared up any confusion about current average pace for the forerunner 110!

NOTE THAT THIS IS A FIRST IMPRESSION REVIEW:
Here is some information I couldn’t find elsewhere
1. The watch does not have “bike mode” as has its predecessors, but it CAN be set to tell you your speed in mph/kph.
2. The the light and right buttons take a bit of force to press while the lower left button is much easier. Maybe the tougher buttons are that way so your wrist doesn’t press them.
3. When you start and stop the timer, the watch gives you a pop-up window that says “timer started” or “timer stopped” which takes a few seconds to disappear. It’s kind of annoying.
4. When you tell the watch to go out of gps mode, you have to wait about a minute before you can tell it to go back into gps mode. The reverse is also true. Again, this nuance is not a deal breaker, but it’s annoying.
5. When you press the “lap” button while timing. The screen will change and give you the lap time for about 10 seconds and then return to the screen that gives you total elapsed time. In other words, there is no way to view your lap time as it increases. It’s only viewable at the END of the lap.
6. To reset the stopwatch, you have to hold “reset” for 3 seconds. That’s irritatingly slow.

This watch is certainly less gigantic than the 205/305. I think it’s a bit smaller than the 405 too. It has a solid, well made “feel” but is not very heavy. The band is comfortable for a plastic watch and has a circumference of about 9″. As stated in the instructions, you have to hold still for the watch to acquire satellite signals. It easily gets signals faster than my 60csx which has a SiRf III chip, but I’m not sure how the 205/305/405′s compare. Beyond telling the watch to report 12/24 hour mode, pace/speed, km/mi, and beeps/alarm only/off you can’t customize much about what it shows you.

Sadly, I haven’t had time to take the watch on a run or match it with my 60csx, but I will try to post that data this weekend.

Overall, this watch seems like it should do what it was made to do just fine. Due to its sluggish stopwatch, expense, bulk, and lack of simultaneous showing of elapsed lap and total elapsed times, I won’t take it to the gym any time soon. That said, I am still excited to try it on runs and bike rides.

Also, I highly recommend Clever Training as a vendor. I ordered the watch on Sunday and got it on Wednesday.

UPDATE: 5-10-2010
I took this watch on a run along with my 60csx. For the duration of the 2.4 mile run, they stayed within 0.02 of a mile of each other (usually 0.01). I could not compare the speeds directly because the 110 only gives you a running average. It would be nice if Garmin would allow you to change that feature. Sometimes the 110 will get a signal in about 15 seconds, but sometimes it takes more like a minute.

UPDATE: 8-15-2011
The watch has performed well over the at past year. I’ve found it annoying that it can’t give you an instantaneous speed. You only get your average speed from the previous mile you ran. That is sometimes convenient and sometimes irritating. Hopefully the new 210 and 410′s don’t have this problem.

I’ve had this watch for a few weeks now and have been very impressed. It’s light, compact and looks pretty good too. I saw another guy last week who was wearing an older running watch – the display was huge! I’m very happy with this Garmin and have worn it as a regular watch a few times too.

I’m also happy with the performance. I’m not sure why other reviews say that current pace isn’t shown on the display – it very clearly is. The top third of the display shows total distance, the center toggles between time and heart rate, and the bottom third shows current pace. When you complete a mile it shows average pace for 10 seconds or so, then goes back to current pace. Perhaps there was a software update since the reviews were written – when I connected the watch to my PC and went to Garmin’s website an update was automatically downloaded and installed (very easy process) so if I’m being charitable to those reviewers I’d assume that was the case.

The buttons on the watch work really well, and were easy to learn – I don’t want to think about how to use them while I’m running, and after the first couple of times using it I don’t have to. They feel responsive and solid. I’ve run in the rain and had no problems with moisture damage.

The link to Garmin’s site is also very nice. It’s easy to upload your activities, and the information it shows is very clear. I love seeing the maps of where I’ve been, and using the play feature to see how my pace and heart rate vary with location and elevation changes, plus estimated calories burned.

The only criticism I’d have is that it’s not always 100% easy to connect the USB cable to the watch, as they’ve used a clip thing rather than a port, but I would guess they didn’t want moisture to get in the port.

Overall I’m extremely pleased with this. It’s given me the confidence and information to run by myself instead of relying on running buddies to keep me on pace, and has been a great motivator for my running, and my times have definitely improved. Definitely five stars

If you have previously owned the Forerunner 305 or 405 (and are used to their features) or are a tech-savvy serious runner/racer, then the new Garmin Forerunner 110 is probably not for you.

However, if you a runner looking for a solid GPS watch without too many bells and whistles, this is a good choice. The 110 is pretty easy to use (although the manual leaves something to be desired) and avoids the problems that arose with the bevel on the 405. Just head outside, stand still while the 110 finds the satellites, hit on, run, hit off. No – it doesn’t give you your current pace…just the average of the run or your last lap…but I’m guessing that the 110′s features will be more than enough for many users.

For those who have hesitated to buy a Forerunner up to this point because of the size and/or ugliness of previous models (I have pretty small wrists and the other Forerunners were HUGE on me) – this Forerunner may be for you. And the women’s is almost kind of cute…